I'm Just Sharing

Two weeks ago I was having a brief yet interesting conversation with someone on Twitter. He asked if people enjoyed Mel Gibson movies less these days because of some of the bad behavior that’s been attributed to him. I said I can’t get myself to watch anything with him in it; the other guy believed people should separate the private person from the works that person has done.

This post is based on that conversation. It’s a hard topic to think about because we all not only have different thoughts on it, but it depends on what we perceive as “egregious” at the time.

For instance, there were a lot of people who turned against Michael Jackson during his trial, though I wasn’t one of them. Many people had already decided his guilt because they didn’t like his personal behavior otherwise. I don’t think you judge the quality of someone’s work because you don’t like their personal behavior. After all, Robert Downey, Jr has been to jail and rehab, what, 20 times (okay, exaggerating a bit), but he’s on top of the world, puts out great stuff, and, well, he’s just the most likable guy. No harm to anyone but himself.

Then we have Mel Gibson. I’ve tried to go out of my way not to hear any of these tapes that supposedly have him calling his ex-girlfriend all sorts of names and saying a lot of intolerant and racist things, but unless you turn off your TV or radio it’s going to get through, and I did eventually hear one thing; man, it sounds like him. He sounds drunk as well, and based on his past behavior with the police, it seems to be a pattern. The difference here, at least to me, is that he’s projected himself to be this super-Christian, even building his own church, has 9 kids and projected himself as the ultimate family man. Talented or not, I feel like I was sucked in only to be let down.

Of course he’s not the only one. I’m sure y’all remember Jeffrey Jones from many movies including Ferris Bueller, Amadeus & Beetlejuice, who’s now a convicted sex offender. Then there’s R Kelly, who luckily got off from his underage sex trial and immediately prompted this response from a radio DJ (and who can blame him; it was R Kelly’s house, and the guy in the video ‘in his house’ urinated on a little girl who may or may not have been 18; he also married Alliyah when she was 15, so there’s a pattern. But I digress…). And, whether or not you believe OJ did it, does that demean his being a super talented athlete, which also goes for Lawrence Taylor, Ty Cobb, and Pete Rose? Politicians get forgiven by the masses many times over (Robert Byrd and, being fair, I have to include Nelson Mandela here).

This isn’t a new subject, but the way. Richard Wagner wrote some incredible music, and I’m almost ashamed to say that I love a lot of it. That’s because he was an avowed bigot in his hatred of Jewish people, and never tried to hide it either. Even today, there are symphonies that won’t play any of his music because of it. And while we’re on it, are we ever going to forgive Chris Brown for beating up Rihanna? Does he deserve it, being a kid of sorts when he did it?

In this day of sex tapes and, because of 24/7 media slips of the tongue, how much should we tolerate and support and forgive? Does it matter whether it’s a violation of a person harming themselves or someone else? What say you? Are there people you’ve kind of forgiven or people you won’t forgive?

Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Epic Series DVD (Full Frame)

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